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Is being called “Howdy Doody” grounds for a restraining order? How about if you’re a school board member? How about if the person saying it is a parent at a public meeting?

Sweetwater school trustee John McCann raised these issues in court last week, and now the district is paying for it. Literally.

McCann didn’t get the permanent protective order he sought, and now the question is this: Should the Sweetwater Union High School District cover McCann’s legal fees, estimated at $2,400?

That sum, incidentally, could buy the district 15,360 No. 2 pencils at a time when it just laid off 197 teachers.

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In an April 23 declaration accompanying his request for a restraining order, McCann accused Chula Vista parent Stewart Payne of talking about him “in a derogatory fashion” and using a “slur” by calling him “Howdy Doody” and “stupid” at a school board meeting in January.

More seriously, McCann said, Payne made him fear for his safety during an altercation in which Payne raised his hand and threatened McCann and a security guard intervened in a parking lot after April’s meeting.

More than 5,000 have been issued in the San Diego region this year, according to another prominent South County politician, state Assemblyman Ben Hueso, who is pushing a bill that would beef up restraining orders he says get violated more than half the time.

“Their pervasive use makes it clear that victims are desperate for protection and an effective way to address the problem,” Hueso said in a January opinion piece.

In Chula Vista, the domestic violence response team at South Bay Community Services receives 1,600 calls a year from police seeking help. About 5 percent end up with a counselor accompanying someone to court to seek a temporary restraining order, director Amaris Sanchez said.

I asked Sanchez if McCann’s inability to get a permanent protective order may discourage others who need one from seeking it. Maybe, she said. Probably not.

“What’s happening in one’s relationships is so specific to a couple, to a family, that they may not necessarily look at a request like John McCann’s as having any real relevance to what they have been experiencing,” Sanchez said.

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At last week’s hearing, España rejected a request by McCann’s attorney — hired by the school superintendent at district expense — for Payne to pay the bill.

The board may reconsider covering McCann’s legal fees in June. This week, Payne told me McCann should pay himself. McCann said no way.

Payne said he defended himself in court for less than $200. He said he paid for copies, postage, a disk drive to download videos for his case and gas to obtain a handful of witness statements.

He feels like justice was served, but doubts the school board will order McCann to pay the $2,400.

After talking to Payne, I also thought McCann should. But after talking to McCann, the case didn’t seem so simple.

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It’s an interesting issue — protecting public officials at public cost — and one on which McCann’s own views have evolved over the years.

In 2005, as a Chula Vista city councilman, McCann and his colleagues hired a $10,000-a-month bodyguard for the mayor. But after the contract came to light, McCann called it “a waste of taxpayer money.”

Last month, the attorney the district hired for McCann obtained a temporary restraining order against Payne and pursued a permanent one, McCann said, because he believed there was a pattern of threats.

“The president has Secret Service,” McCann said. “The governor has security at some level. I think people understand that elected officials are in the spotlight and that you see shootings at school boards and you see shootings at (city) councils ....

“I would hope that any employer would take appropriate steps to keep their employees safe so they can do their job,” McCann added. “I think you want to make sure that people know that if something happens to them ultimately they will be protected by the district and any other employer.”

Along those lines, he said, this situation was like his yearlong deployment to Iraq as a Navy reservist in 2009 amid a call to resign his council seat. He refused then to prove a point about employee rights.

“The idea was that it wasn’t about me,” McCann said. “It was that I was representing other people who had to leave their jobs to fight for their country.”

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Payne sees their disagreement differently. He said McCann started the flap by videotaping him from the dais during one meeting and that McCann was also the aggressor on April 16.

That night, McCann approached Payne and a group involved in an effort to recall McCann and other school board members. Payne refused McCann’s attempt to shake hands and said McCann got too close to him.

McCann said Payne clenched his fist. Payne said he wagged a finger.

Both agree that Payne told McCann to back away or “get knocked out.”

From the bench, España called the behavior inappropriate and immature, but said it was one incident short of the two McCann needs by law to show Payne is a threat worthy of a protective order.